Saint Bega was reputedly a saint of the Early Middle Ages; an Irish princess who became an anchoress and valued her virginity. Promised in marriage to a Viking prince who, according to a medieval manuscript The Life of St Bega, was "son of the king of Norway", Bega "fled across the Irish sea to land at St. Bees on the Cumbrian coast. There she settled for a time, leading a life of exemplary piety, then, fearing the raids of pirates which were starting along the coast, she moved over to Northumbria". The most likely time for this would have been after AD 850, when the Vikings were settling in Ireland. The life of St. Bega The account of Bega's flight from Ireland is found in the Life of St Bega, part of a collection of various English saints' lives that belonged to Holmcultram Abbey in Abbeytown, Cumbria, and is dated to the mid-13th century. The Life continues: So the account has Bega living in seclusion, and after a time travelling to Northumbria, where she was admitted to sacred vows. It also states that she founded Hartlepool Abbey, a convent at Hartlepool, but modern historians believe the writer of the Life created a composite St Bega, with events from the lives of Heui, who founded that convent, and Begu; who was mentioned in Bede's life of St Hilda of Whitby. This confusion put Bega into the 7th century, which is clearly inconsistent, as the Vikings, whose raids supposedly led to her fleeing to St Bees, only appeared in the area and started raiding Ireland from ca.795 onwards. The miracles Bega is associated in legend with a number of miracles, the most famous being the "Snow miracle", which is described in the Life of St Bega thus: "Ranulf le Meschin (sic) had endowed the monastery with its lands, but a lawsuit later developed about their extent. The monks feared a miscarriage of justice. The day appointed for a perambulation of the boundaries arrived – and, lo and behold, there was a thick snowfall on all the surrounding lands but not a flake upon the lands of the priory." This version describes it as happening long after her death and concerns the monks of the Norman Priory. However, a version of the Snow Miracle is also found in the Sandford manuscript. This was written in English after the dissolution of the Benedictine Priory